Hearts a Mess
by pooby
Summary: AU: Clint and Natasha were recruited by SHIELD as children, and they quickly became friends.
1. Chapter 1

Natasha winced as she pulled her khaki denim shorts over her skinned knees. The dirt and dust that usually painted her skin was absent after she had used her weekly shower token, but she didn't enjoy the clean feeling. She felt naked, like a spider without its legs. The grime provided a shadow for her to hide behind, so she would just be the grubby little redhead hiding behind the other children, instead of a pristine beauty with long legs and a quickly developing figure. But she had to have bathed at some point, because her aversion to cleanliness had caused her to skip last week's shower, which made her hair nappy and greasy. A few of the boys had poked fun at her about it.

With her long, still damp hair tied in a high bun, she exited the showering facility and proceeded to walk to training. Natasha knew that she would be scolded for wearing shorts or warned that she'll scrape up her legs, but she didn't care. They were much more liberating than pants, anyway.

It took longer for Clint to catch up with her than he usually did. He walked beside her silently as they proceeded along the dirt path that led to the huge SHIELD Training Facility.

"What happened to you?" She asked him, even though she knew the answer. He often got in fist fights with the other boys, and today he donned a split lip and a cut cheek.

"Some kid almost got the last apple this morning, 'cause I was late to breakfast. Couldn't let him get away with that, could I?" Clint shot one of his goofy, lopsided smiles at her as he kicked a rock off the path and into the sagebrush.

One of Natasha's dark eyebrows raised in scrutiny. "You know that he had just as much of a right to that apple as you did, yes?" It took Clint a minute to answer her, and she suddenly became preoccupied with her English. She lived in Russia until she was deported to British Columbia when she was seven, so she had only been speaking English for a little over five years.

"Look, Tasha," Clint stepped in front of her and grabbed her shoulders. His tight grip made her nervous. She hoped he couldn't tell. "You know just as much as I do that you gotta assert your dominance here. It's the only way we'll ever have any kind of order." His light blue eyes lit up when they met with her jade ones as he subconsciously started ghosting circles into her shoulders with his fingers.

Natasha shifted her shoulders uncomfortably, signaling him to let go, even though her heart fluttered in her chest so hard that she could've sworn he noticed.

"Sorry," he breathed as he dropped his arms to his sides, remembering how much she valued personal space. "I forgot." He scratched his head uncomfortably.

"'S okay." She smiled, but it didn't last long. It never did with Natasha. "Come, we need to hurry. We are already late."

Clint hiked up an eyebrow. "Race you?"

The cloud of dust expelled into the air acted as her reply.


	2. Chapter 2: Boys Don't Cry

**{This one's much longer! I hope you enjoy it. It's been a week, hasn't it? Sorry, I'm out of school so I've been having trouble keeping track of dates. If it's been longer than that, I apologize.}**

The two SHIELD agents positioned at the entrance of the training facility's eyes widened a bit at the two dusty children cresting the hill in front of them. Clint and Natasha were pushing each other playfully as they approached the large gray warehouse-like structure. Although, as usual, Natasha had a very serious and almost fearful expression that flinched with every push. Clint didn't notice, another normal occurrence. He wasn't exactly the most observant person in the world.

"Sorry we're late." Clint said, panting with a smirk.

"No you aren't." One of the guards sneered.

"Fine, I'm not." Clint's smirk turned into an arrogant grin, until Natasha elbowed him.

"Clint!" She snarled through gritted teeth.

He clutched his arm and mouthed a small "ouch", and then looked at Natasha with a slightly irritated expression. "Fine," he said. "You try to get in."

Natasha cleared her throat and looked to the guards with all of the courage she could muster, which wasn't much. "Will you please let us inside? I have used my shower token this morning and I took too long. Do not blame my friend."

Both of the guards wrinkled their noses at the young girl's strange way of speaking. Her thick accent was impairing enough, and the limited vocabulary made her even harder to understand. But both the agents were getting tired of this song and dance, so they parted and let the two children pass.

A shudder galloped down Natasha's spine as soon as she entered the training facility. Clint noticed her shoulders quiver suddenly and raised his eyebrows.

"You okay, Tasha?" He slowly raised his hand to her shoulder, but she smacked it away just before his fingertips could graze her.

"Why do you always forget?" Natasha said, setting her jaw and clenching her fists. "I do not like to be touched. Not by you and not by anyone."

Clint's face fell as he turned to her. "Why, though? What happened to you that made you so... scared, all the time?"

"Now is not the time, Clint."

"But when is, Natasha? I've told you _everything_. I stole food for you that one time when you were late to both lunch and dinner in one day. I took care of the assholes who were trying to kill you because you were lurking outside their pod, which you never explained to me either." Clint took a deep breath. "What's it like, living with a mask on?"

Tears lined Natasha's bottom lashes. She held her breath, willing the sobs not to come. '_Crying__is__weak__, __you__are__not__weak__. __You__are__locked__away__, __you__are__strong__.' _blared through her mind as she blinked rapidly.

"All I'm saying is I deserve to know some answers. Please don't be upset-"

Natasha exhaled loudly, cutting him off. She cleared her throat and prayed that her voice wouldn't crack or display any other signs of weakness. "No, you're right. I have been selfish. I promise I will tell you everything, just give me time. I need to..." Her courage suddenly spiked, allowing her to look up at Clint. "I need to find the right words."

* * *

Natasha curled against the gymnasium-like floor, her shoulder absorbing the impact. She wasn't doing well and she knew it. After an agent named Samson had noticed her daydreaming instead of doing crunches, he had assigned her to a practice brawl with a boy much bigger and stronger than her, as opposed to doing laps. Everyone knew that fighting without padding was very much against the rules, but that's what they did during the training sessions. They snuck things through and worked children to the bone, because they were disposable soldiers and no one would stop them.

The boy with which she was currently sparring (whose name she had long forgotten) picked her up by the collar of her black t-shirt and swung his fist into her face with force that made Natasha forget where she was for a moment, much less what she was thinking about. She felt her bottom lip split open, and saw the crimson spray out onto her adversary. The boy, who was much taller than her, dropped Natasha at the sight of the blood and ran to the other end of the training facility for one of the more advanced agents. His eyes were wide and scared, and she thought about calling out an apology to him, but only more blood poured out of her mouth when she opened it.

"Natasha!" She heard a familiar voice from across the facility, but she was too busy panicking about her ruptured lip to bother turning her head. The ground began to grow closer and closer as she felt more and more weak. Her eyes zoomed in and out of focus in a way that made her more frightened than ever, but before she could bring herself out of the trance, she crumpled to the ground and let the red on the floor coat the back of her shirt.


	3. Chapter 3: Through the Ghost

_**OOC: Sorry this is so short/late! Some stupid crap came up.**_

* * *

A fluorescent light was the first thing Natasha became aware of as she lazily breached the shores of consciousness. The second thing was a woman's voice repeatedly saying "Wake up."

"Hmm...?" Natasha said softly, almost as if she had been sleeping.

"Good. You're awake. You've gotten yourself a rather serious concussion and a decent amount of bloodloss."

Natasha was taken aback by the voice's accusation. She knitted her eyebrows together and replayed the last sentence over again in her head. "But... I didn't do it to myself." She finally said quietly.

The disembodied voice let out a scoff. "What, did you get help?"

"There... there was a boy and he was... hitting me." Natasha insisted.

The voice's owner came into view when Natasha sat up. A woman stood behind glass, her light blond hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and her face pointed and foxlike. "I think you might've hit your head harder than we thought. An instructor informed us that you fell from one of the practice structures."

"N-no! I was fighting with a boy and he was much bigger than me and he would not stop hitting me and-"

"Guards, sedate her." The woman barked coldly, her eyes narrowing slightly with each syllable.

Natasha felt a needle jab violently into her inner arm, and her surroundings faded yet again.

* * *

For the second time, although awaking from the sedative was definitely smoother than regaining consciousness from a concussion, Natasha was disoriented and confused. It took her a few minutes of feeling around beneath her to find that, with a sigh of relief, she was in her own bed. Her bleak white pod was darkened and she could just barely make out other children across the main aisle sleeping, indicating to her that it was night. The small enclosure had always reminded her of how her grandmother had described one of the tiny rooms men in Japan often stayed in if it was too late to catch a train home.

Natasha rolled out of bed and slowly made her way to the small plain dresser opposite to her, still feeling sluggish from the sedative. She pulled on her sleeping clothes quickly, not bothering the move out of view to change. It's not like anyone was awake anyway.

"Wait."

Natasha froze just before she pulled her shirt over her chest. She whipped around and tried to scope out the source of the noise. She relaxed immediately as she recognized Clint's shape in the corner, but anger began to coil in the pit of her stomach.

"Clint, what the hell are you doing here?"


End file.
